Longing for a Cowboy Christmas

by Leigh Greenwood

  “This is the best Christmas I’ve ever had,” he said. “It’s…” He tried to think of the right word and couldn’t.

  “Magic?” she said.

  He smiled. “Magic.”

  She laughed. “Wait till you see what I have in store for you next Christmas.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “I won’t have to sing, will I?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “I have a feeling I’m in trouble.” He kissed her again and again. “I don’t know how it happened, but sometime between you getting me tossed from the boardinghouse and bombarding me with Christmas ornaments, I seem to have fallen head over heels in love.”

  She giggled. “Like I said. Magic.”

  About the Author

  New York Times bestselling author Margaret Brownley has penned more than forty-five novels and novellas. She’s a two-time Romance Writers of American RITA finalist and has written for a TV soap. She is also a recipient of the Romantic Times Pioneer Award. Margaret makes her home in Southern California and wrote this story during a hundred-degree heat wave. You can find Margaret at margaret-brownley.com.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Readers,

  I hope you enjoyed Tom and Holly’s story.

  I thought you might be interested to know that this particular tale was inspired by the following letter from A. Z. Salomon printed in the Greeley Tribune, December 19, 1877: “If there be any person or family in this community too poor to buy Christmas presents for their young children, I would like them to call on me personally for aid. All communications of this nature considered strictly confidential. Also, if there be persons in this community in need of provisions, who are unable to purchase them, I would like to know.”

  Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas.

  Until next time,

  Margaret

  One

  Sagebrush, New Mexico,1903

  The tin shingle outside the weatherworn storefront rocked in the wind, squealing in protest at each blast of the frigid air. Colin Foster leaned against the building and looked up at it.

  Evelyn Prescott, MD.

  Part of her name had been damaged—looked like somebody had tried to scratch it off. Even so, Evie had done it. She’d actually gone and gotten herself a medical degree. He noted that even though the shingle displayed her name, the window had Doc Williams’s name on it. Maybe she was still working for Doc—or maybe she was working with him.

  Colin turned up the collar of his wool-lined jacket and stuffed his bare hands in his pockets. The cold cut through him like a sharp knife slicing a ripe tomato as he stood there staring at the sign. Small icicles hung off the bottom edge, little daggers poised to strike some unsuspecting passerby. He’d ridden into town hoping to catch Doc before the old man and his wife headed off to Christmas Eve services at the church across the street. He’d left his horse at the livery out of the weather in case this took some time. He was sure Doc could fix him up with some concoction that would allow him to get back to work.

  For a cowhand like him—a man who drifted from ranch to ranch working the herds from spring through fall—finding something in the middle of winter wasn’t easy. He’d finally landed this job with Tom Madison, a rancher he’d worked for years earlier—a rancher who was offering him a chance to stay on permanently as foreman. His plan was to get some medicine from Doc and then take to his bunk. By the day after tomorrow, he should be good as new.

  Still he hesitated before knocking on the frosted-glass panel of the door. Seeing Evie’s name on the shingle was unexpected. They’d spent a season together five years ago when Doc and his wife took her in after she’d run away from home. Colin had been a seasonal hire at the Madison ranch then. Through the summer and fall, he and Evie had spent every moment they could find to be together.

  She was always talking about what she planned on doing once she’d saved enough money. He was always more interested in what they might do that afternoon. Their parting late that December had not been pretty. They’d argued—him wanting to get married and settle down, and her determined to get her medical degree even if she had to leave Sagebrush, and him, to do it. She’d assured him she would come back to him, but Colin was a man who lived in the moment. He didn’t trust such promises, having had them broken before when jobs that might have given him the stability he sought never panned out.

  Last time he’d come through this way a year or so ago, he’d stopped to see Doc. The two of them had sat down for a beer at the Paradise Saloon, and Doc hadn’t said a word about planning to close up shop. He for sure hadn’t mentioned turning his practice over to Evie Prescott. He had mentioned that Evie was head of her class in medical school and might even be hired to teach once she finished her degree. He’d told Colin what a waste he thought that would be.

  “She’s got a gift for healing. That don’t belong in no classroom,” Doc had said.

  Now Colin was in need of medical attention, but Evie? She’d more likely kill him than cure him. Besides if the fellas back at the ranch found out he’d gone to see a female doctor, he’d never hear the end of it.

  He cupped his hands around his face to ward off the sting of the icy snow blowing around him and peered in through the front window, hoping to see Doc bent over his desk. Between the weather and a fever that was worsening, he was having trouble focusing. But everything looked pretty much as it had last time he’d stopped by.

  Through an open doorway at the back of the office, a lamp threw shadows across the rough, whitewashed plaster walls. A figure passed between the light and shadow, moving into the office—moving toward him. A woman who moved too briskly to be Doc’s wife. Colin shrank back into the dark of the deserted street, inching around the corner and down a side alley to huddle in the doorway that led to Doc’s living quarters.

  As the church bells sounded the call for early evening services and the citizens of Sagebrush left their homes and shops and headed for the church, Colin surrendered to a coughing jag that felt as if his insides might end up on the dirty snow piled against the building. He wrapped his arms around his gut and doubled over. The coughing and gagging went on and on, weakening him to the point that when it finally passed, he pressed against the cold wood of the building, gasping for air.

  “You should come inside, sir.” He knew that voice as well as he knew his own. It had haunted his dreams for five long years. He also knew she hadn’t recognized him. He lowered his head so his hat gave him cover.

  “I’ll be all right.” His voice was raw, his chest still burning. She was dressed for church—in a shawl and a perky little hat that did nothing to protect her golden hair.

  “I am a doctor, sir. Please come inside so I can help you.” She placed her hand on his shoulder.

  He shook her off. “Said I was fine,” he mumbled, realizing at the same time that he had no strength and if he took a step, he’d likely end up facedown in the snow. “Give me a minute,” he said, and then added, “Thanks,” hoping she’d give up and go on to church.

  But this was Evie, and Evie did not give up. She had always been mulish, always so sure she was right. She’d also been the only woman ever to set his heart—and body—on fire. “Come on, cowboy,” she said, hooking his arm over her shoulders and wrapping hers around his waist. “If you’re determined to let what is probably a simple chest infection kill you, let’s at least get you warmed up enough to go on your way and not die within sight of my front stoop. That would be bad for business, and business is bad enough.”

  She delivered this through gritted teeth and huffs of breath as she struggled to move his six-foot frame back around the corner and through the open door of her office. Once inside, she kicked the door shut with one foot and then helped him to a chair near the potbelly stove.

  “Stay,” she ordered as she bustled around, shaking the fresh snow from her shaw
l before hanging it on a hook, unpinning the silly hat, and setting it on the desk. She lit a lamp, then filled a tin cup with water from a kettle on the stove. “Drink.”

  He kept his head lowered as he wrapped his trembling hands around the cup. The way she snapped out orders annoyed him. He wasn’t a dog after all. If this was the way she handled patients, no wonder she had no business. He took a couple small sips of the water and felt the tension in his body relax slightly as the warmth from the liquid spread through him.

  Evie sat at the desk and opened a notebook. He realized he was seeing two of her and shook his head in a failed attempt to clear his vision. He clutched the edge of the chair, determined not to give in to a wave of dizziness. She licked the tip of a pencil and said, “How long have you had this cough, Mister…?”

  “Couple of days.” He ignored her request for his name.

  She snorted and turned to him. “Couple of weeks is more like it. If you refuse to be truthful with me, I can’t help you.”

  “Don’t recall asking for your help, and…” He started coughing again. The cup shook in his hand, the water sloshing over the edges. Pain shot through his chest and torso.

  “All right, that’s quite enough,” Evie muttered. “Let’s have a look and a listen.” Once again, with the strength of a man twice her size, she maneuvered him from the chair and onto the examining table. In the process his hat came off, and when she had him on the table and was sure he wasn’t going to fall, she stood back, her breathing ragged, her hands on her slim hips.

  Colin knew the exact moment she recognized him. He’d thought maybe the fact that it had been years and he hadn’t shaved for several days would keep her from realizing who he was, but when her eyes went wide and her mouth opened and closed a couple of times with no sound coming out, he knew the game was up.

  “Hello, Evie,” he managed.

  * * *

  Colin Foster.

  Evie swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat that threatened to make her breathing as much a challenge as his. From the first time she’d seen him striding across Sagebrush’s small plaza, he’d had that effect on her. Colin had always had a way of sucking the oxygen out of a room. “You,” she croaked.

  He managed a weak grin that turned to a grimace as the coughing overtook him again. Unable to see anyone—even Colin Foster—in pain, Evie went to work.

  She wrestled with the exam table to raise the head so that he was in a half-reclined position. “Needs a good oiling,” she muttered as if he cared. It had been five years since she and Colin had parted. Things had changed for both of them. She felt self-conscious seeing him again after all this time.

  Finally, the rods snapped into place. “All right,” she said more to herself than him. She covered his head and shoulders with a towel and then poured steaming water from the kettle into a pan and held it beneath the tent of the towel. “Breathe,” she instructed. “Deep breaths.”

  The fact that he didn’t argue told her just how sick he was. Colin Foster always argued with her, especially when she was trying to get him to do something—especially when he was sure he knew better—which was always.

  “Just give me some tonic and—”

  “Shush,” she ordered.

  After several minutes had passed, his breathing steadied, and she saw the tension leave his body as he relaxed. She set the pan of now-tepid water on a side table and removed the towel. His eyes were closed.

  “You need to remove your jacket and unbutton your shirt so I can examine you,” she said, hoping her tone was professional when the very idea of seeing Colin’s muscled body—a body she knew all too well—beneath the tight knit of the long johns he surely wore brought heat to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the warmth of the room.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. “You first,” he said with a hint of the devilish grin that had always been her undoing.

  “Be serious,” she snapped. “The way you’ve been coughing just since I found you, you could have cracked a rib.” She began pulling his jacket over his shoulders and knew her diagnosis could be right by the way he stiffened and bit down on his lip.

  “I can manage.” He shrugged out of the jacket and managed to open two buttons of his shirt before lying back exhausted.

  “No need to completely remove your shirt,” she said as she finished undoing the buttons, pulling it free of his trousers and spreading the flaps. She gently pressed her hands onto his chest, moving slowly over his body as she watched his expression.

  He met her gaze with bleary-eyed defiance, clearly determined not to reveal what her touch was doing to him. But he could not disguise the way his body jerked in pain when she pressed his right side. Without saying anything, she reached for her stethoscope and listened to the thunder of his heart—strong beats but too fast. “Lean forward and take deep breaths,” she murmured, moving to listen to his lungs—lungs that gurgled with fluid. She frowned as she eased him back onto the raised table.

  “So, Doc, what’s the verdict? Will I live through the night?” He tried a laugh that ended up another crackling cough.

  She realized he had no idea how ill he was—how if he had not decided to come to town tonight, this might have turned into pneumonia and he might have died. “I’ll do my best to make sure you’re still here by morning,” she said.

  He frowned. “Bad for business, is it?”

  “Something like that.” She thrust a thermometer between his open lips and lifted his wrist to count his pulse—also too fast. She did not allow herself to even consider that his rapid pulse might have something to do with being here with her.

  When she removed the thermometer and checked the reading—too high—he shuddered and reached for his jacket. “You need to stoke that fire, Evie. It’s freezing in here, and if you’re gonna insist on having me strip down…”

  The room was so warm Evie had resisted the urge to open the high, tight collar of her shirtwaist, but Colin was shivering. She considered her options. She had already prepared her bed, thinking after she returned from early services, she would get under the covers and read until sleep overcame her.

  Her bedroom was steps away from the examining table, and a fire in the fireplace there plus the three quilts piled on her bed would help break his fever. “Come on,” she said as she eased his legs over the side of the table and once again draped his arm over her shoulders.

  “Where we going?”

  “I need to get you to bed,” she replied.

  He choked out half a laugh. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  “Just shut up and try putting one foot in front of the other,” she snapped as they stumbled forward.

  Somehow they managed to make it from one room to the other, and once they were near enough, she dropped him onto the bed. As he curled onto his side, she pulled off his boots before lifting his long legs onto the bed and reaching for the covers. His shirt was wet with perspiration, and his breathing was rapid and shallow from the exertion. She pushed an extra pillow beneath his head and shoulders, and when she realized he wasn’t objecting—or helping—she knew he was a lot sicker than even she had suspected. He was still conscious, but just barely.

  “Colin.” She whispered his name as she stroked his dark hair back from his forehead. How she had loved this man!

  And how badly he had shattered her fragile heart the day he walked away without so much as a backward look. All because he was a man who wanted what he wanted when he wanted it, and she had dared suggest marriage could wait while she got her medical degree.

  Not that she hadn’t wanted to marry him—spend every night lying in his arms, waking to his kiss every morning. But there were practicalities to consider. If they were going to settle down, one of them needed steady work. His job required moving from place to place, following a herd as it was driven from high country to grazing lands to market—and then it was on t
o another ranch in another place to do the same. Even if she couldn’t get accepted to medical school, she had the promise of steady work with Doc. That meant he could take a job at a ranch or even in town and stop his drifting from one place to another, never knowing for sure if there would be work or not.

  And then on the afternoon of Christmas Eve the letter had arrived—her acceptance to medical school in Kansas City. She’d thought Colin would be so happy for her. But before she could share her news, he had proposed—not only proposed but insisted they marry at once. He’d worked everything out already, so when she handed him the letter, he read it and then looked at her. “What about us, Evie?”

  “We’ll be fine, Colin,” she’d replied, still caught up in the thrill of the news. “I’m going to be a doctor.”

  “Evie, I know you’ve dreamed of this and worked hard for it, but I don’t think you’ve thought it through. Who do you think will be your patients? Certainly no cowboy I know would ever let a woman so much as bandage a simple cut, much less treat a broken bone or snakebite.”

  It was the first time he’d shown doubt in her. Before, he had been the one to assure her she could do anything she set her mind to.

  “They have wives and children who will need treatment. I’ll start with them, and in time, once I earn their trust…”

  “And how are you gonna pay for all this?” He tapped the letter with two fingers.

  “I’ve been saving my wages from Doc, and the school is offering me a scholarship and…”

  They’d gone back and forth, their arguments escalating as each sought to win. He’d fought for marriage, a family, postponing medical school. She’d debated that was putting the cart well before the horse and might indeed prevent her from ever achieving her dream.

  She recalled how Colin had sucked in a breath and stared hard at the sky before looking back down at her. “Why, Evie? Why aren’t I enough?”

  She’d tried to explain. As a girl whose father was a drunk and whose mother had died, leaving Evie to fend for herself, she’d been determined she would not depend on anyone ever again. Her love for Colin had tested that resolve. But that night when he’d turned his back on her, she’d renewed her vow of independence. She would make her way in the world with or without this man she loved. “People die, Colin,” she’d told him, “and they leave.”